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Iosif watched the clock and knew he had to make the call. He didn’t want to argue with his father over a transatlantic phone call but he would not be denied. Not with his chance for a different life, one with Jaden and the possibility of a family. It might not be the life his father had in mind but it was one he wanted.
The clock chimed four times and Iosif knew he couldn’t put this off any longer. Due to the time difference from here to Russia, now would be the time to call him. He reached for the phone and dialed the international code then his father home phone number. When he heard the ringing on the other end he held his breath and waited for his father to answer the call.
“Da, who is this?” Timor answered.
“It’s me, father.”
“Are you ready to come home again?”
Iosif could hear the impatience in his father voice. “Actually father that’s why I’m calling. I’ve decided to stay here.”
“Nyet, you have responsibilities here. You have an office and a job right here at my side. I will not let you leave that job. You must come home now.”
“Father I’ve met a woman here and I’ve claimed her,” Iosif told him.
“Bah, women are a dime a dozen.” Timor scoffed. “If you want a wife I’ll find you one that will be accepted by the family. You are my heir apparent and you must have just the right wife. One that is strong enough to stand beside you as you carry out the job you swore to when you took the oath of the Bratva.”
“Father, you’re not listening to me,” Iosif insisted. “I’m not leaving the Bratva, Yuri has offered me a position here and I’m taking it. You can train my cousin Ivan to take over for you when you retire. He would have come next in line if anything happened to me anyway. You have plenty of time to guide him and he is eager to learn.”
“I don’t want your cousin to take your place!” Timor shouted into the phone. “I want one of my sons to take over for me when I retire.”
“I thought I wanted that too, but I found someone I can’t live without,” Iosif told his father.
“I don’t care what you found.” Timor growled. “Who is this woman? How can you fall in love in a few days? You don’t even know this woman.”
“I don’t have to know her to know she’s perfect for me in every way.”
“I forbid this.” Timor’s voice shook.
Iosif wanted to laugh in his father’s face, but of course he didn’t. “Father, I’m a grown man. I can do what I want. You can’t forbid me from taking her as my wife.”
“But I am your commander in the Bratva. I can forbid you to leave this organization. I can order you to return to your job and take your place.” Timor growled.
“Father, I will continue to represent the Bratva business and uphold its law and bylaws. I have already put in a request to the national leaders. They have already agreed to the change of address. They like the fact that they will have a new branch in this country.”
“I will come back over there and drag you back with me,” Timor threatened. “This woman is not good for you. She is nothing more than a gold digger.”
Iosif scoffed. “You don’t even know her name and yet you think she’s nothing more than a woman after my money?” He snarled, “How dare you?”
“No, my son, how dare you!” Timor shouted. “Do you take me for a fool? Of course, she loves you, she looks at you and sees a wealthy man who can give her the world. She doesn’t know you and you don’t know anything about her. How can you? You’ve only known her a few days.”
“At least I know her better than I know you apparently,” Iosif spoke softly. His voice was low and cold and full of rage. “I thought you were a man who wanted only the best for his sons. I thought you were a man who would stand beside us and give us his support, but you’re not are you? You’re doing the same thing to me as you’ve done with Roman. Ignoring what we really desire. Our women and our wishes to live our lives.” He paused then added, “You are my father, but you are no longer someone I can admire.”
He hung up the call slowly as he finally realized his father truly was a bastard.
He looked up at a faint sound and saw Jaden standing there with tears in her eyes.
Without saying a word, she turned and went back into the bedroom.
He followed and listened for a moment while she sobbed her heart out.
He leaned on the door jam and shook his head. Moving silently on bare feet he crawled into the bed with her and dragged her into his arms. Wrapping his arms around her slight body he held her close.
After a few minutes he whispered, “Hush now sweetheart. It will be alright.”
She tried to stifle her sobs but couldn’t for a moment. Her throat wouldn’t allow words for a time. She tried again and whispered, “How can this be all right? Your father will never allow us to be together. He will pull us a part. He’ll take you away from me, away from here. All I did was come between you. It’s a bad thing to break up families!”
“My father can stop a lot of things from happening but he can’t tell me who I can love or not love. I’m a grown man who knows his own mind. I love you and I will not be denied what I want. He cannot deny me you.”
Jaden looked up into his eyes. For a moment she just stared at him as if memorizing every line, every detail and storing that memory deep in her brain. Reaching up, she outlined the contour of his face. She began with the fullness of his lips, then moved to his nose and eyebrows, to his forehead and jaw line.
“What are you doing?” Iosif whispered.
“I’m committing you to my memory, so I’ll always know you. I’ll always have one good memory to combat the thousands of bad ones in my mind. Your father is wrong. You can fall in love in just a few days. In just hours, I’ve fallen in love with you. I didn’t know your name the moment we met but when our hands touched I felt something strong and undeniable and it woke something up in my soul. I haven’t truly been living all these years, I was merely existing until you came along and woke up a part of me I didn’t even know was there.”
Isoif reached up and smoothed his fingers across her cheek.
She licked her dry lips with the tip of her tongue and continued. “You are the other half of my soul, I think. The one man in this whole world I am truly meant to be with. The yin to my yang. Only with you do I really come alive. Only with you do I even exist.” She looked into his eyes so he could see the truth in hers. “I don’t care about your bank account, or even seeing the world. I know it’s out there. I’ve seen pictures of faraway places and faraway lands and never once felt a desire to go there and visit. I’ve never had nice things and I’ve never missed having them for myself. I don’t want fancy clothes or shoes. I have one necklace and I’m told that belonged to my mother. That means something to me because it was hers.”
“What are you saying?” Iosif asked, as he looked troubled.
“Money isn’t important to me. It’s only paper, but you,” she paused a moment. “You are my life. You are my soul. “
As the moments ticked by, one of Yuri’s top hackers, Craven was clicking his keyboard searching files and internet places of interest. He wore a frown that deepened with every site he visited.
Kosta had given him the chore of backtracing a woman known as Jazzy Gibbons. There was only one problem, Jazzy Gibbons did not exist.
She was never born, in this country or anywhere else in the world. He’d cracked Interpol records and searched other countries as well. She had no driver’s license, or Social Security card. She never paid a dime in income taxes either.
Jazzy Gibbons was a ghost. Either that or Jazzy wasn’t the name she was born with. He did find her listed on the paperwork of the apartment records where she was murdered in but nothing else. She wasn’t even listed as ever working at Frankie’s.
He paused a moment then leaned back and lit a cigarette. Calmly smoking it right down to the butt, Craven reached over and picked up the phone. He dialed a single number and was connected immediately to Kosta’s room.
As soon as the other man answer Craven told him, “Boss we got a problem. I need to see you right away.” Then he hung up the phone and lit another cigarette while he waited for the big man to appear.
Moments later the door to his small office was thrown open and Kosta charged in. “What the fuck do you mean we got a problem?” he roared.
As day was breaking, Yuri was awakened by a special ring on his phone. He came awake at once, reaching to the phone almost before his eyes were open. His entire body was on alert. The ringtone meant something was drastically wrong and he was needed immediately.
He was up and getting dressed right away. The penthouse floor they were living in was quiet at the moment so there was no attack in progress. Yuri buttoned his shirt before he glanced over at Raven. She was still asleep and that was good.
She looked so beautiful in her sleep. She was his whole world and if the alarm meant something bad, Yuri knew he would give his life to protect her and his kids. He glanced down at her belly in awe.
She hadn’t told him yet but he knew another child was growing inside her. He’d seen the same changes in her as the first time she carried his babies. He could hardly wait for her to tell him the good news.
He leaned over her and brushed his lips against her skin. He knew he couldn’t linger but he wanted to. He wanted her so badly he knew he couldn’t stay. Whatever was coming he had to protect her and his babies.
Slipping on his shoes he left the penthouse as quietly as he could. The elevator barely made a sound as he shoved his special key into the lock and the door opened. Rushing down the floors, the door opened on a special floor no one else knew about. This was his security floor.
He looked around and finally saw Kosta standing at one of his secure rooms. Yuri walked over to his and without asking demanded answers as to why he was here so early.
“Jazzy Gibbons does not exist,” Kosta told him.
Yuri got a sinking feeling in his chest. “Why don’t I like that statement?”
“If you don’t like that wait until you find out the rest,” Kosta assured him. “Craven called me at four a.m. to tell me that. I had him run the DNA test the social services used to verify Jazzy was the Jaden’s mother and the results just came in.”
The sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach grew as Yuri waited for the all-important answer. “Well?”
“I don’t know how but her maternal bloodline matches Sergi Constantine’s.” Kosta dropped his bombshell.
“What the fuck?” Yuri whispered.
“I know.” Kosta nodded. “I couldn’t believe it either. Whoever this Jazzy was she’s related somehow to Sergi and Misha. That is going to freak them out to no end.”
To say Yuri was stunned was an understatement. He reached for his phone and dialed a New York number. When Nikoli answered grumpily, Yuri walked away as he asked his boss some questions he never should have had to ask. This was none of his business but he needed answers.
Three hours later Nikoli walked into Yuri’s New Orleans office at the hotel. As he sat down in the chair opposite Yuri he began talking, “After your call this morning, I made my own calls, I called some people I know back home and I found out some very interesting things. I found out that forty two years ago, someone snatched a young ten year old girl off the streets of Moscow. To do this they had to kill her bodyguard. The girl was a cousin of Sergi’s on his mother’s side. A girl Sergi was very fond of, a girl he never got over losing. After the first few years, everyone stopped looking for her but they never forgot her. Her name was Annika Stasik.”
Yuri nodded. “But what does this mean for Jaden?”
“I’m not sure yet,” Nikoli admitted. “I put a call into Sergi and he’s on his way here. Misha is coming as well. Just be forewarned.”
Yuri sighed and rubbed his hands over his face. He then filled Nikoli in on what Nikoli knew some of but not all of it.
When he was finished Nikoli got to his feet and said, “I want to meet this woman before all hell breaks loose.”
Yuri got to his feet as they walked to the elevator and winged their way to the top floor of the hotel. He went to the door of the suite Iosif and Jaden were in and knocked on the door.
The door opened and Iosif was standing there. When he saw Nikoli he stepped back and allowed the two men to come into the rooms.
Yuri noted Jaden was sitting at the table drinking coffee.
She looked over at them and her eyes widened with dismay and a little bit of fear at the sight of the older man beside him.
Yuri smiled and shook his head, “Please don’t get up. In fact we’ll join you for coffee.” Looking over at Iosif he raised an eyebrow.
Iosif grinned and moved toward the coffee pot. As he poured the cups full of hot coffee, he noted the other men had joined them at the table. Putting the cups in front of them he asked, “What do we owe this pleasure to?”
“We’ve come across a situation here,” Yuri informed them. Looking at Jaden then at Iosif he stated, “As you know we ran a search on Jazzy. We thought to trace her back and find out who she was in order to find out what we could about who you were.”
Jaden nodded. “And what did you find out about my mother?”
Yuri cleared his throat. “It was more what we didn’t find that concerned us.”
Jaden frowned and glanced at Iosif.
He reached out and took her hand. “Ok what didn’t you find?”
“We found that Jazzy Gibbons never existed,” Yuri told them quietly.
Jaden quickly got to her feet and stared at them in fear. “W-what do you mean she never existed?” she whispered. “She w-was my mother, of course she existed. I mean how could a ghost give birth to me? How could a ghost be murdered?” Tears ran down her cheeks.
Iosif pulled her over to him and onto his lap. Looking over at Yuri he glared at the other man. “What are you saying?”
Yuri met his eyes and stated, “We found no records of any kind of Jazzy Gibbons. Obviously, she existed, she was a real person, but we found no records of her birth, her health record or even her work history. My men even ran through Interpol records. Then we ran her DNA through the system. There we were able to find a rare match.”
“What type of rare match?” Iosif demanded.
“We were able to trace her DNA through her mother’s side,” Yuri stated with a sigh.
“And where did this trace end up?” Iosif tightened his hold on Jaden.
“Straight to Sergi Constantine,” Nikoli informed them.
Iosif looked over at Jaden in a confused manner. Then he looked over at Yuri and Nikoli. “I don’t understand. How could it lead to Sergi?”
“We aren’t sure either,” Nikoli admitted. “Before I came here, I did some digging and found that one of Sergi’s young cousins was snatched off the streets of Moscow as a young girl. No trace has ever been found of her.”
“Until now, apparently,” Iosif scoffed softly.
“Until now.” Nikoli acknowledged.
“Now what?” Iosif asked looking very upset.
“Sergi is on his way over,” Yuri informed him.
Iosif growled. “So I imagine is my father. He’s coming here to drag me back to Kazakhstan like I was an errant child. I called him a few hours ago to tell him I was staying here to be with her and he blew a fit.”
Jaden whimpered and tightened her hold on him.
Iosif tucked her closer and held her firmly. “He more or less accused her of being a gold digger and told me I had obligations to my country and to the Bratva.” He shrugged and continued, “What he didn’t know was I had already checked in with the National Council and got their ok to stay here. I told them I would continue to represent them but it would be as part of the American embassy. We may all be Bratva but our sect is a little different than your own is. Let’s just say my father is not a happy man and leave it at that.”
“I can just about imagine.” Yuri sighed.
“Oh, I don’t think you can. He was very harsh this morning.”
“I doubt even he would willing cross Sergi,” Nikoli stated.
“I guess we’ll find out in a few hours.” Iosif glared at no one in particular.
Jaden kept her face pushed into his chest. “It’s all too much...Just too much.”